I wrote this "tirade" several weeks, hoping to relieve myself of a demon or two. Although I had started off the year better than typical, by spring time I felt stagnant and listless. After I wrote the first draft, I put it aside for a few days to allow time for a conclusion to develop. During that time, real life (because what I write is all fiction and fantasy, right?) placed obstacles in my writing path and demanded my attention. In fact, I was so distracted I spent very little time posting anything to social media. Nothing new for almost three weeks. I'm still not sure what brought me back to writing at this moment. Perhaps it is the fast-approaching birthday. Or the summer vacation starting soon. Or it's the crazy need to scratch this itch. Who knows. Thank you for indulging me and reading this. The desire to reconnect with all of you was too strong to ignore anymore.
Breaking Fast, Rediscovering Connections
The Internet is frustrating. The distances between us are shrunk virtually and the time to communicate is practically zero. We receive notifications on multiple devices, whether in our pocket or purse, in our ear or on our wrist. Text messages are sent and received with the expectations that the receiver will stop everything to read and reply, even at the expense of a conversation with a person IRL. (That’s In Real Life, for those born before the turn of this century.)
Yet, for all the perceived benefits of the instaneousity of information, technology has not helped us to deal with the overload:
Four of your friends have birthdays today... Here’s 12 more tips on SEO... “This Police Officer Bought A Meal For A Homeless Man, But Then His Department Gets THIS Call…” Don’t scroll past this post without typing Amen!... Your meeting begins in 15 minutes…Did you respond to that email?... Recommended for you: that TV show you just finished binge watching...
What is lost? Perhaps that important message from your child’s teacher. Or the reply from your doctor. Or the reminder to pick up the nail glue for your wife. (No boys, not liquid nails from the hardware store. She WILL NOT think you are funny.)
What is found? Emails from that prince in Nigeria who wants to transfer money out of his country, but needs your personal information to send the money to you. Updates on the latest exploits of the Kardashian spawnlings. And cat videos. So. Many. Cat. Videos.
So what, you may say. That’s the world we live in, right? True, the technology is here, and I can’t control how others want to use it. But how I use the resources, the network of people, the information shared; that depends on me. I awoke this morning hoping to put together a blog post of reflections on a piece of art shared by a friend from halfway around the globe. Someone I don’t expect to ever meet in person, except virtually. She pairs quotes and visual images, regularly sharing them online. Her latest pairing made me think of many people who are, or were, going through rough stages in their lives. That happens often; my mind wants to connect people because I want to connect with them. Because I am connected to them.
It was 6:30 AM and I opened my front door to the world. The pre-sunrise air swept in and cooled the skin on my face and my arms. Then the words came in, delivered on the wings of the morning air. Not a great realization, not a light bulb over my head. Just a simple truth about connections. It’s defined by the emotions in the connection, regardless of the medium facilitating it. Whether it’s my new neighbor who I see practically daily, the grade school friend who I have known for nearly 40 years and now lives a couple hundred miles away, or that person with whom I have never shaken hands and resides on another continent, I maintain the connections based on the emotions of it.
And what a range of emotions! Sadness for a friend whose grandmother has passed. Joy for the news of a new child. Elation when the medical tests come back negative. Anger and frustration at the reports of accidents and deaths in far-off communities. Anxiety when you see the reminders of upcoming events you do not wish to attend. Wait, I have to scroll to see more of my news feed…
I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t designed to handle that much at once. In fact, I prefer to focus on one or two things at a time. Like these postcards I write. Snapshots (or screen caps, in the modern language) of my life at hand, I want to save the memory, the feelings, the connections. Often I will look back on older posts and can only feel the emotions superficially. Other times, I feel more deeply than I should, and suddenly a postcard erupts from THAT moment. And life goes on.
The second most difficult aspect of writing, for me, is the beginning. How to start, what will be the first sentence, the first word. Miles ahead of that is the most difficult aspect, writing the ending. How to conclude, summarize, end it. I suppose it comes from the little fears that I left something out, or didn’t explain a certain point in great enough detail. Today I didn’t learn a great lesson about myself. I gained no further insight than what others have told me before. I am writing this to save myself from the overload. By writing about the emotion-fueled connections, I hope to understand a little more about myself and those around me, and ultimately strengthen those connections.
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